The principle that "information wants to be free"
fits Leninism like a bullet fits a rifle

Last updated May 8, 2002cyberLeninism

Our mission is to correct the wrong conceptions
which grew out of the 1917 revolution
and to lay the theoretical foundation for the 21st century

The principle of"information wants to be free"
fits Leninism as a bullet does a rifle

A glossary of key terms
the proletariat will use
in waging information war
and implementing transparency.

The bourgeoisie will not be able to
withstand the organized effort of
the proletariat to wage information war

What is going on with this site?
What is Ben Seattle up to?
"The good, the bad and the ugly"
last updated: May 8, 2002

Proletarian Democracy
How will economics, politics and culture work
when the working class runs modern society?

How the communications revolution
will transform the "left ecosystem".
A communist trend of trends
will eradicate sectarianism,
puncture the influence of reformism,
and capture the imagination of millions.

What will a communist
economic and political system
look like in the modern world ?

Will the dictatorship of the proletariatcensor the internet ?

Architecture for Victory
How the proletariat will use information war
to mobilize millions for
the overthrow of bourgeois rule

Communist theory and practice will combine to deliver to millions of workers
in the advanced industrialized countries the news that the fundamental solution
to all the problems of the modern world--is the overthrow
of the system of bourgeois rule--and its replacement with something that
has never existed--workers' rule under modern conditions.

Theory of Workers' Rule
under modern conditions

The rule of the rich will be broken 
The economic, cultural and political life of society will no longer
be ruled by the wealthy or subordinate to the needs of corporate profits.
Sources of bourgeois wealth will be confiscated.
All attempts by those with any
remaining form of wealth or privilege--to leverage their resources
and seize control of society--will be smashed.

Workers will run society without restriction 
Workers will have the democratic right to
hear and voice uncensored views
and form independent organizations
under conditions of political transparency.

Workers' News Network

Reviews of all important articles in the mainstream press

Inclusion of full text of all articles from
participating progressive organizations

Platform for "coopetition"
(ie: competition and cooperation)
between various progressive trends

Web-accessible database • open to contributions
from all • No copyright--everything is public domain

Readers decide what to read (and what to ignore)
on the basis of collaborative filtering

What is progress to date ?

Notes of an information theorist:

CRITICAL MASS
A communist movement worthy of the name
can only organize itself around
a theory of workers' rule
that is fit for the modern world.
But before this can happen
charlatanism and denial must be smashed.

open to all trends and created such that no single trend
(or group of trends) could dominate it
in such a way as to censor or exclude other trends

- - -
The decisive task in theory is to provide:

---- A CLEAR PICTURE OF WORKERS' RULE ----

The decisive theoretical task is to show how the system of workers' rule.
will suppress the bourgeoisie
without also
suppressing the working class.
(and thus paving the way for the domination
of a new class of privileged exploiters
--as happened in the Soviet Union, China
and other "socialist" countries).

a polemic against the defenders
of the
Single Point of Control theory
featuring brief sketches of the organization
of political, cultural and economic life
in a future where all authority flows
from principles
that have been distributed universally
and are part of everyone's
internal compass
rather than institutions
which are external
to the individual
and which use one or another form of
carrot or stick-- approximately 20,000 words --

By continuing our political development
and harnessing the the power
of the coming revolution in communications --
we can help to lay the foundation
for a communist "trend of trends"
with the ability to eradicate sectarianism
from our ranks,puncture the influence of reformism
over a vast audience,capture the imagination of workers
in their millions
and mobilize our class
to ignite a fire
that cannot be extinguished.

The coming revolution in communications, now in
its earliest stages, is already beginning to demonstrate
its potential to influence the development and interaction
of Marxist (and would-be Marxist) organizations.
In the next decade or so,
the communications revolution
holds promise to completely transform
the "left ecosystem"
at present consisting predominantly of
squabbling sectarian grouplets,
craven reformists and the
just-plain confused.
In place of this will likely emerge a
dynamic and powerful system
of communist organizations which will both
compete and cooperate
with one another
at levels which at present may seem inconceivable.

This series is being written for serialization
(on a sporadic basis)
for the Spoon's Marxism-International
(M-I)
listserv..

Riding the crest of the wave
of the communications revolution,
we are going to bring information war
(as a battle of ideas, as a struggle for consciousness)
to the masses, as a vehicle for their aspirations

The bourgeoisie (and its apologists and flunkies)
seek to control the language so that
they can control the ability of the proletariat
to think and reason politically.

Language (as an instrument of consciousness)
is both a
passive target and an
active weapon
in the sphere of information war.

The definitions
of key terms are themselves objects
of struggle and represent contested terrain.

Here are definitions
worth fighting for.

Zhang Shanguang and
the Proletarian Revolution

Criminal or Courageous Activist?

Zhang Shanguang, a political activist in China, was recently sentenced to ten years in prison for giving an interview to a foreign reporter.
Some believe that Zhang's imprisonment is necessary to prevent China from being ruled by a class of wealthy and powerful thugs. Others believe that China is
already
ruled by a group of wealthy and powerful thugs--and that a
real workers' state
would not be so afraid of the free flow of information.
The question is
decisive
to the proletarian revolution because a clear and unifying goal of a
workers' rule
can never emerge
to mobilize millions--until a clear distinction can be made
in the popular consciousness between workers' rule and a police state.

Humanity stands at the dawn
of the greatest communications revolution in history.
The development of a global digital communications infrastructure
promises, as decade rolls after decade, torelease vast and ever-increasing
amounts of oxygen
onto the fires of the class struggle,
setting the stage for
an eventual political explosion
of stellar magnitude.

.

On the Transition
to a Communist Economy

A workers' state would organize a "communist sector" of the economy
side-by-side with a regulated capitalist sector.
The capitalist sector would itself consist of both
private capitalism and state capitalism.
The communist sector would be a "gift economy"
that would operate
without money, wages,
commodities or exchange.
It would be highly experimental
and would grow as it learns what it is doing,
eventually competing
with the capitalist economy
and absorbing and transforming it
as a developing chick does the white of an egg.

Unfortunately it has been a long time since I have made more than minor updates to this site.
The pressure of other political
work has made it necessary that I prioritize my tasks.

Recently I put together a useful index to my current (and past) work including the
email lists that I run,
my theoretical work and my work with
digital infrastructure.
You are welcome to check this index out at
http://struggle.net/ben

Watch Ben apply the tactics of information war
(characterized by intelligent listening and calm, scientific
argument) to help transform the marxism space into
a powerful weapon against the system of bourgeois rule.

The Red Team Information refineries for the proletarian century Now building
the digital nervous system of the working class

17 Theses
Seventeen Theses on the Destiny of the Revolution in
Communications and the Concept of Workers' Rule

It took a lot more work than I thought it would--but the entire cyberLeninism site has now been transfered to its new home. In the process, I overhauled every single page. I cleaned up all the dead links. I also redesigned many of the pages to take advantage of the fact that hardly anyone is still using Netscape 2.0 (which can't handle colored tables).

The new server is faster and will also allow me to use automation in the form of "Active Server Pages".

2. Chapter 8 released of
"How to Build the Party of the Future"

Chapter 8 is the first chapter dealing with the period during which Lenin was in power.
Current plan is to release the chapters a month apart. Will this be realistic?
(There was a 10 month gap between chapters 7 and 8.)
All released chapters are now posted at:
www.Leninism.org/pof together with most of the good discussion (and some of the bad discussion).
Instructions for posting your own comments or getting on the "Party of the Future" email mailing list are on that page. Check it out.

3. Cool animated button

You can now link to this site using a cool, animated button. All you need to do is include the following in your html code:

If you really like the button, you can make it display at twice normal size by using width=176 and height=62 in the code above. Then it will look like this:

4. Forum is STILL frozen

And the links page is still drastically overdue for an overhaul. The good news, however, is that nearly every single dead link has been removed.

The forum and the links page will be functional, better than ever, as part of the site automation.

5. Site automation has been slightly delayed

At least I hope the delay is slight. It took me much longer than I thought to transfer this site to Leninism.org and overhaul every page. Automation will begin (hopefully) very soon now. Does "soon" mean days or months? I hope it means days.

I've got a lot of work to do tonite before I go to sleep, so I'll sign off here.
Best wishes to all the readers who give me encouragement!

Ben Seattle (cyberRed)
---- 1.May.98 -- 2am ----//-//

Previous Report -- 14.Nov.97

Many readers are upset or disappointed that the forum has been frozen
for more than 10 months. Here is one letter:

Date: Wednesday, October 15, 1997 12:45 PM
> Dear ben,
>
> Hi, i'm a big fan of your cyberLeninism page
> but I'm becoming concerned with the apparent
> inactivity in the site. When do you plan to
> unfreeze your forum if ever and where can I
> get involved in an on-line communist
> discussion until then?

-- Ben replies --

Here is the good, the bad and the ugly:

-- The good --

The good news is that I plan to "automate" my site--so that
the forum will operate without my having to hand-code the e-mail I receive into html,
fix all the dumb mistakes that I make and then FTP everything up to my ISP.

-- The bad --

The bad news is that before I can start this task--I must finish at least
the theoretical section of my
How to Build the Party of the Future series.
Originally intended as a weekend project--it will likely take me thru the end of the year.
I have written 7 chapters so far and am currently working on the chapters
which sum up the period in which Lenin was in power.
I have only had time to post the first 3 chapters--but
will post everything as soon as I have a chance.

-- The ugly --

The best forums that I know of for Marxist-related discussion--are in the
Marxism Space
maintained by the Spoon Collective.
These are e-mail based discussion lists.
The best of these Spoon forums is
Marxism-International.
I am not necessarily recommending these sites--because few of the participants
are serious about actually doing anything--and the quality of the discussion
is very uneven--with occasional brilliance side-by-side with unbelievable stupidity.
But until there are Marxist forums of higher caliber--this is the best of which I am aware.